Smooth Irish (Book 2 of the Weldon Series) (21 page)

“
There you go again.”
Jackson shook his head smiling.

“
What.”

“
Goals and plans. They’re
a cure-all to you.”

“
You know what they say
about an ounce of prevention.”

“
Yeah. I just hope that
nothing comes along and detours your whole life.”

“
Things like that happen
to everybody. Life is never easy. I’ll just come up with a new
plan. I always have. I bought you something.” She jumped up and
retrieved the plant. “It’s to brighten up your cabin.”

“
Thanks,” he said, though
his voice sounded dubious.

“
It’s an African violet.
They’re supposed to bring happiness to those who keep
them.”

“
Sometimes nothing can do
that,” he said, but before she could reply, he picked up her black
book.

She reached for her wineglass, was
tempted to down the whole thing, but then set it back down. Wine
wasn’t going to help. It was a good thing she had already eaten
most of her dinner, because she suddenly lost her ability to
swallow.

Jackson read, his expression moving
from puzzlement, to interest, to a sexy grin. It didn’t take him
long before he finished. He set the book down, forked the last bite
of his roast and potato casserole then picked up his wineglass. He
didn’t say a damn thing about the story.

Finally, she couldn’t stand the
suspense any longer. “Well?” she demanded.

“
Well, what?”

“
I told you they were
stupid.” She sat back, strangely let down. As if she had bared part
of herself and been rejected.

Jackson set his wine down with a
clunk. He stood and started taking off his black shirt. Nan glued
her hungry gaze on him. When he’d first shown up at her apartment,
damp with rain and dressed in all black, he’d looked so much like
the pirate Black Jack that she’d nearly attacked him. If she’d been
able to move she probably would have attacked him. Her mouth
watered and her stomach tingled with anticipation. Jackson taking
his clothes off was a good sign, but he stopped after removing his
shirt and came to stand directly in front of her.

“
How are you
feeling?”

She licked her bottom lip.
“Good.”

“
No dizziness or anything
like that?”

She drew a deep breath, centered her
gaze on the dark triangle of hair on his chest and followed it down
to the waistband of his black jeans. “Nope.”

“
How’s your pulse?” He
took her wrist and laid his forefinger against her vein. “It feels
a little fast.” Instead of releasing her wrist, he wrapped the
sleeve of his shirt around her wrist and tied it there.

She shot her gaze to his face. Only
then did she see the deeply sensual gleam in his eyes. She could
imagine just such a gleam in Black Jack’s eyes. Her heart sped
faster and her stomach clenched with an influx of butterflies. “I
don’t think—“

He leaned over and gently kissed the
words off her tongue. “Don’t think, Nan. Just feel.” He stood and
then pulled her up with her tethered wrist. “Do you come willingly
to my bed wench, or do you need convincing?” He ran his finger down
the center of her chest.

Oh, my! Nan blinked. Jackson seemed to
become the pirate Black Jack. Answering words burst from her.
“Never, you scurvy scum.”

Her answer seemed to disconcert him.
“Scurvy scum?” he repeated, wincing.

She nearly grinned. “Tis how I see it.
A man who has nothing better to do than to take the hard earned
fruits of other people’s labor is a scurvy scum.”

A loud, enraged meow sounded from her
bedroom followed by intermittent thumps.

Jackson looked at her and she looked
at Jackson.

“
What is that cat up to?”
he muttered moving toward her bedroom.

“
I’m sure it’s nothing,”
she answered following.

“
I left my new sunglasses
in the truck and I didn’t bring my motorcycle.”

They entered her bedroom to find
Shakespeare jousting with Jackson’s boots. The cat charged, swiped
out his razor sharp claws just as he passed the boots. The boots
reeled then noisily thumped back to the floor and Shakespeare
charged again.

“
Stop,” Jackson thundered
with enough volume to shake the walls. Shakespeare skidded to a
halt so fast his tail end keeled over his head causing him to flip
in the air. Once he righted, he stood still, crouched on his
paws.

“
Don’t touch the boots
again. If you do, I’m going to have to bring my brother’s dog to
visit you. His name is Brutus. Got it, Shakyboy?”

Shakespeare meowed with abject
humility. Then almost as if he was bowing to leave the presence of
a king, he backed out of the room. Nan blinked with surprise.
Shakespeare had never shown such contrition. Was she raising her
cat wrong, failing him somehow? Up until now Shakespeare owned the
house and
let
her live
there.

To her surprise Jackson didn’t even go
examine the gazillion scratch marks on his boots. He scooped her up
and tossed her onto the bed.

“
Now, that I’ve dueled
with that scurvy pet, let’s see to you, wench.” He smiled slowly
then, and drew a pack of condoms from his back pocket, tossing them
beside her. “I think we’re going to need all of these tonight,
wench.”

The condoms bounced. Twelve? Nan’s
mind boggled. It was a good thing she didn’t have to work in the
morning. But surely he didn’t plan to use them all tonight. She
drew a deep, anticipatory breath. Whether she could manage such a
feat or not, the very thought of experiencing such an odyssey of
pleasure at his hands was an aphrodisiac. The smell of honeysuckle
lay sweetly in the air, and the spray of blossoms he’d brought her
lay forgotten on the edge of her bed. She should have put them in
water.

“
We were discussing
stealing fruits weren’t we?” he asked.

“
Yes, you
knave.”

“
Stealing fruits sounds
good to me, especially if the fruits are yours, my
lady.”

He made a damn good pirate, Nan
thought as his voice and its silky smooth vibrations thrilled her.
Before she could think of a witty answer or manage to squirm out
from under his hard body, he slipped his shirt up through a wooden
slat on the headboard and wrapped the other sleeve around her other
wrist, tying it loosely.

“
Your fruits are worth any
risk, sugar,” he said, straddling her as he began unbuttoning her
blouse.

Blood rushed through her and pooled
between her legs. Her heart beat faster, and her body became
fevered with sensations. She tugged on the shirt binding her, and
had second thoughts about this little fantasy. “Uh, Jack, I don’t
think that this—”

He leaned over and kissed her softly
at first then more deeply. “Don’t think sweetheart, just feel.”
Pulling her blouse open, he groaned when he saw her leopard print
and black lace bra. “Nice,” he murmured, fingering the lacey
edges.

She sucked in a deep breath, arching
her breasts closer to the heat of his touch. He snapped open her
bra and her breasts sprang free. With her hips pinned beneath him
and her arms bound above her head, she was totally vulnerable to
his touch, to his whim. Maybe this wasn’t a good…

“
Now, let me tell you what
I think about your story,” he said softly. Taking a velvety
honeysuckle flower, he traced her nipples. “By the way, your fruits
are magnificent.”

Then he took the flower and pulled the
center of it out. Honeysuckle nectar lay gleaming on the small stem
he held. Nan watched fascinated as he placed the nectar on the tip
of his tongue.

“
So sweet, so tasty.” He
pulled out two more blossoms and did the same. This time he covered
her nipples with the nectar. “Let’s get back to your story and save
the fruit for later.”

She gasped at the arrow of pleasure
shooting straight to the heart of her desire. “My story? Fruits?
Oh, uh, not fair. I don’t want to talk about my story right now.
Fruit is good. Let’s have some more fruit. Maybe stealing them
isn’t so bad.”

He laughed. “How about story and
fruit.” He cupped her breasts, molding them to the center of her
chest and then leaned down and brushed his tongue across their
pebbled peaks, sucking off the nectar. “Delicious.”

Her hips involuntarily lifted off of
the bed, pressing her hot need to him. “I can’t think.”

“
That’s good, just feel,”
he said sitting up and releasing her breasts. She felt the loss of
his touch immediately and ached for more. “Your story made me feel.
I wanted to know more about the woman and the man. I wanted to know
what had happened in their past and what would happen in the
future. Did he tie her to his bed? Did she make love to him before
they’d reached port? Did he let her go afterwards? The story turned
on both my body and my mind,” Jackson said.

Starting with her bound wrists he
feathered light touches over her skin, moving his way down her arms
back to her breasts. “And thinking about you tied like this made me
hot.” He rolled her nipples gently between his thumb and
forefinger.

A groan of exquisite pleasure escaped
from her. This time she couldn’t stand it. She arched even higher
and her breath lodged in her chest as she shuddered with
desire.

“
Are you hot,
Nan?”

“
Too hot,” she
gasped.

“
I’m burning too, sugar.
Burning up for you.” Moving off of the bed, Jackson shed the rest
of his clothes. As he came toward her, she went to touch him, but
couldn’t. She wiggled against the ties in frustration. She was
about to ask him to let her go when he grabbed her ankles. Lifting
her legs, he slid off her sandals, then ran a finger down the
sensitive skin of her insoles. Before she could recover, he started
nibbling the inside of both of her legs, bending them as he moved
his way up until his mouth came down and covered the hot yearning
flesh between her legs.

“
I’d always heard there
was more than one way to skin a cat, sugar,” he said as he hiked
her skirt up to her hips and slowly slid her leopard print
underwear down.

Nan giggled then gasped and groaned in
response to all of the delicious things Jackson did to her. She
couldn’t take anymore. “I’m skinned, Jack. I don’t feel I can stand
anymore. I’m on fire. Let me loose.”

He kissed her deeply and reached up
with one hand to release the wrist he had loosely tied. Free, Nan
sat up and pushed Jackson over onto his back. She attacked with her
mouth and hands, placing kisses and little touches everywhere and
giving his erection as much loving attention as he’d lavished on
her.

She was lost completely in her need
for this one man. Ever since she’d met him, he’d been the only one
to consume her thoughts; he’d been the focus of her needs. She
wanted him to feel, too. To feel his way out from behind that wall
that kept him a prisoner. His breath was ragged in her ear and his
hands trembled as he touched her. Still she wanted more from him
and gave more and more of herself.

“
Now, Nan. Ah, sugar, I
need you bad.” He grabbed a condom and soon slid his sheathed
erection inside her. “I need you now.” He withdrew a little and
dove deeper. “I need you tonight, tomorrow, next week. I’ve never
needed like this before.”

She sighed with the pleasurable
pressure filling her. This was the way things were meant to be
between a man and a woman, the passion, the pleasure, the exposure
of their vulnerable selves and the acceptance of each other’s flaws
and humanity. This was a part of what love was all about. Wrapping
her arms around him, she matched his every move as he rocked them
to ecstasy and beyond.

As they lay tangled together, gasping
for air, Nan knew Jackson had somehow pirated away her
heart.

“
The Old Salt was right,”
Jackson muttered.

“
What Old
Salt?”

“
The scurvy pirate in your
book.”

“
Oh.” She snuggled closer
to Jackson then her eyes popped open. “Right about
what?”

“
You can warm a bed better
than a tavern wench.”

“
What!” She smacked
Jackson in the chest and started tickling him.

“
I…couldn’t…resist…,” he
said in between laughing and defending himself. “Seriously, I think
you should write the whole story.”

“
I will,” Nan said in a
huff. “Only I think she’s going to outsmart Black Jack and tie him
to his bunk one night when he’s had too much rum.”

“
Tie him up,
huh?”

“
Yep.”

“
You’ll have to research
the logistics of that first. Did you know that I make good research
material?”

“
I’ll need to consider my
prospects when I get ready, but I’ll keep you in mind.”

Jackson flipped her onto her back and
covered her with his body. “I’ll just have to make sure you don’t
forget,” he said and then proceeded to make her forget everything
but him.